One of the challenges we’ve been attempting to sort out is the ability to create the decorative spinal bands on the covers of the sort we feature on our current Library, Libraria, and History books. They’re not, strictly speaking, necessary, but we have no desire to produce books that are inferior in any way to those bound elsewhere.

Our first two attempts were technically viable, but suboptimal. Our third attempt went catastrophically awry thanks to the casting company’s total failure to either understand what we were trying to do or correctly apply the instructions and designs. We didn’t even try to utilize it, that’s how bad it was.

But happily, our fourth attempt finally met with success.

We’re aiming for a different shape and size than our current books have, since we’ve decided to shoot for what we call the “Franklin” hubs rather than the “Easton” hubs. The Franklin hubs are more elegant, being a little more slender, a little harder, and protruding a little more than the Easton hubs, as can be seen in the image below. There is also a third type of hub we call the “Italian” hub, but they’re seldom, if ever, seen in the United States and we’re not at all inclined to use them.

While this is a genuine Castalia case made out of the same Italian leather that the Library books do, the hubs are not the final design. We intend them to be a little thicker than they are here, and to protrude a little more, but that’s just a matter of minor adjustments to the design now. The important thing is that the design works as intended, and so we can expect to be entering full production this summer.

We’ve also been testing out a wide variety of leathers, and expect to have some new announcements and options available later this year, including some gorgeous Spanish full-grain cowhide that has to be seen and touched to be believed.

In other production news, the US bindery’s box-making machine is down, which is why we have not yet received PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in the warehouse yet. They expect to get it back online on Thursday, so we should be able to start sending the books out late next week. We will keep you posted.